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Social geography III: Committing to social justice

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Abstract

Social justice is regarded as a key underpinning principle of social geography. This report focuses on social justice in social geography and related issues of inequality, discrimination and intolerance. I appraise debates about social justice in social geography and then pay specific attention to issues of poverty and welfare, gender and sexuality, and race and ethnicity. I argue for social geography to be committed to social justice and conclude by calling for action to commit to promoting social justice in our teaching, research, in our professional practices and in how we challenge our universities to operate.
Social geography III: committing to social justice

 !"!!#
Abstract
  $#            #      
!% #$#
  #    &#  '    !  (  
)  )#    $#             *
#+#
  !  (  #         )  ''    
$##)  ''  '
$###
##!
,(&#-'---+#-
Introduction
(*)# '   ( # 
$## '#
#).!$#)###'
#')#.'!(
    $#  )#  #    )#    )#    )#  
/  )*    )#  0'  1222  )3-      .
0%'124 51263'&#!
$#)#&#
      '  .' 
0%'  1243-    '  012223      $#      
#)&#!$#$0122,13#
7#/!
      #      +  
+#8#&##8
&#    )'  '        '-
'         
!
$#
 ' ) #    ' $#  !
5  0126,  493      7    #    
  '      '  '#      )#      
  '#  '    '         '  
    &#)      #  &#/!  5      '
#'         
$#!:5
01263##
(#   ''  $#
#)+!
())#$#)'
$#))#
+#'&#!(*
#  +#
!(#);  '     
  #  +    +    $#  #  
!(##
$####')
#
!
Approaching social justice
'01222)3#$#
  '     <2!    0<=,  23  '  
'    7)#    $#/      #    7
)#'''/!%$#
#  )#   ))#.
'.)&#!#)
!:#0<<23
)#  '    '  )      '  #  
''$)&#)#
)##'&#!
## ' '    &#
#7/)+#0
>122-:#12263!?'01222),@3)7
#    8    A  )          $#  
*#/!
#8#
$#    '             #    
#)#$#01263!%
                      
)+'$#!
%#
$#!0126,=23)
7'*  #
      #  #$#      #)    
'##  # ' '$#/ 0126,
=23!  B    C  0124,  13      7    
# '     '
'#'  ' &# )#   
  ))  &# '  #
  #  #$#!/          )    *  &#
0C1243#'#))#'
#$#-     )# * '   
'0C1263
?##)
)#$#-'+
  '  #   )#      )#  (')
)    D'  0  12<    )3!  5  +'  
'              $#  #  #
)'012<3#')
#E+0>1263#
#      $#    #    0  1263    
'    #  #  #    D    
0  1263!  E       '   )#  
$#  0>      12<3    $#  0?'    E
129-C123')$#0F#)12123'
!%$#''+'!(
( #     (# &# 
'$#,
+#!
Poverty, welfare and social justice
%      E)#  01223      )#  
        !    )      
*##)
        *!       01223  8
)   #  '
)#  ' '   !  )#  
  G  #  #  #    #        G  '
'  '          )  '  
&##!?$#
''&#
#$#'
+!
 #  * #   
0!!H1212-124EH12<3!
(#)+,
7A  #  )  #
#-'.'0+')
'.'3-I
#)$-'##
/012,943!
#                8  +
    #      *      +!  J
+'  F     01293  +    '    
#  8  ''      #)  '
#!
(#''
)#$#!012<3
'))#7#)'/)
# '.#%
7#/#)#
#!  E    '          
'!ECH
012123#)#)#
'#D)!
              +    
+$#-
)#'!J+'0122<3
# .    + 
'' %012123
+#''5!B
#  )  )#  '    ')'  K  012123
    '+    '    '  
')''''!
?'
+##$##'#!01263
#'
 # #   ) )  '  ) 
!%#+7#+#
)/#')##
+#!0126,6=3'
)7##   +/
    #  '      '      K#    
012<3#+! 
##'))#
#!H0124,<3)7J))'
    *      $#      #/    
'#!
Gender, sexuality and social justice
(  #''  #      #      )  )# 
  E      0126,  <23        #  +
7# # '''   $#   ' 
$#  '  )#    '          
$##  )/! 
012, 3 )  7 &#  '  
)+#)#$#/
)#  ' .+# )&#
'#+#'!(
      #   )#    +#      $#,
'-$#-#$#
&#!
B '  G    ' 
    G        #    '    
$# +#!
%)#   +)#
 #'  #   
  #    $#  0      1212  %'  1293!  ?  
0129,@=13)')'7'
##)/!B01243#
*)# +# ' ( 0 
12123)##
 +'  '  +   .#!
H#####'#7
    )/ 0C126, 93  
)#0B1293!
>      '    C  012<3  )    
''              7      )#
$#+#/'''
');H#'012<3
8 +  
')#!
%$##'
  #        ) #      
'  #      $#          
+#0?)12<12<)K12<3! )
5012@3#'#
&#'+)
 !B #  5F#)  
012123  #  #    #    ')  $#  '  
*        '  +    
#')!(?#L'.E#
01263###)G#
8#).+)
+!)'
?)/012<3#+.+'
    *  #    &#  '#  
+'+'+!
(      &#      01263  #    #$#
                  +#
#&#:H!%#
            01263  '  
''&#
  )#  7      &#  /  0!  993!  J#'  
  #      &#        
#$#8
'$#! ##012<3+
#)#'+#
8'#
'#!
Race, ethnicity and social justice
?##')
))#$#0'J1263
)# '  '   
   ' ##   $# 0!!
C126'12<)DD12@'<6<3!?
)#$##'#
          &#      #
+'8'
#$##&#'
'8!#
$#)'-(#)##
)' +)#   #$# #'
&##'#
'# 0 123! ( '' );  
      ##  #        $#  
   ', C - - 
#!
%*##C
0C > 12<-+ 12123!  012<, 13 
$#*##,
7    '    '      C
''#-#C)-
*#
C''+)))
#.!/
?      0126,  22=3      7)        
$#$'/
)'/)
$#8
$#'!'*0!!E
>122E123#).*
  C    #    '      ?'
? #! 'J 01263
)''#)
 M  H/ #  #
'  #  122  )  '!          '    
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)# 7'. /0! 92@3!5 '
  #    )#      &#    
)  0C    )DD  129    123  C  E#'
'/      0K  123    '    
 ')''#   H
0123!
>' 8012,1143#
*)#    7
'#'
  D  +#    '      #
)        /!  %      '  
#$#)#
!CH# 012< 12<)12123  
#.  #  :N#
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    #  #  #    '  
' .) !
5)+'#
$#  #  C#/  01263  +    #  
E+  ?'  #      $#      #)    >
#7' ' )
    /  0!  @13!  ?  '    C'/  0126,  @443
#$#;#F#
'      #            7
#)D##/ 0'C'126,@443
OCH#')B012<3 
H#012123+
##?#+#!
           #      $#
 #      ' 
+#)#$##'
  !    '               0#  3  )
;+)#
##!%&#)
  0!! J E 124- )   12223
    #'  0C    (  1243  #    
'&##+'0C
12<3!  ?  +'    '      #  E/  012<3
)#$#%#?D+

*.'''$#!J
E01212,@37/)
#      '  A      #  #  
'+                ##  
'/!
Doing social justice
('*(
$#!
%        #      )  8    
  )    '      '    +  
$#!)##
$#&#)#
 #
#'0)?1213!J+'H
012<3#+#
 #  ' ))
'D#'':!
B)    H  012<3      '  
##F
012<3#
    #  '      !  5    )  
#''##0CD
?12<35012<3))#
#    0#  3  #          
?!%
!       
) 8')'
$#P
H##
      '    '         
'&#$##
 #  # #   # 
     #   !
H&#)0126,=213,
7A                        
#    '  M#    '  '.*  .
FC%Q.'  #  #
#&#P#
#  #$#  #
)  '  )  #    )    $#    #
P5#
            $#    +'    +
#'/!
%   '#            '    '    $#
  '              
!!%'
    $##
##!D
0126,9637'#'
'/K012<3
7 )# '/  C 012<3 # )
#))!
J  '    $#    )  '  #    
' ! J+' 012<3+
)#''#I#(
?     01263  ''          
###')$#
) )#   !  ?'    
012<3#.#)''
!%#)###
')#)#7D#
#          #    #
'/  0!13!  (        '  7  /    
'';#
#.!
$#)#'#
!E#D012@3.'
# # '  
  )'      '  #    !  E  
H012, <@93   '#
  #    +  #        7#
'/      ! %  '    
    #  #  #    #  )
# '0?'.# K 12<3
)$##
 '#    $# 0J  
12<3!E#)##
)'$#!##0!!%
?# 12<3 # )'' ' ' 
 #      
''      $#!  B      01293  +  #
#01263#
#'''#
 + %#'/ ) 12! C
$#G##
  #   G  #  ) # 
    $#    &#  '        
''$#!
Acknowledgements
E'##)#
#E#H#
#!
Declaration of con#icting interests
%#03;
#I#)!
Funding
%#03*##
I#)!
References
?)E012<3
E,E!
?'.#KF012<3J#'
','
'!140939@.94!
?'KEK01293E*$#
##)!60=3
1.112!
?'BD FE#D012<3 ;
D.',
! !"
,II!I2!262I2=2<614@!12<!44=4
?BFEK01263,
)!!9=043
22.2<!
CEE)DD 01293+#
),.)!10=3
=4.=1!
CBFH012123HD
##)!@1013=4@.=<!
CH01243%($#!#$%
& '"().6!
CH01263$#! 
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*=0932=.1!
B?01243%,'
(!*!40136.6!
B)H012<3C)#
,'!"
, 60=319.@2!
BFH#'BF)01293H7%
>/,'#
#!10=3=6.=<9
F 0123C),5Q#C#
@0362.<@!
'012<3'((,.
''!!9=013=4=.=@
FO01243
#!!90439@.4@
K01263S%T,'###''
C!?,II!I2!I!19@
 012<3%)#''#I#?,
'+&###S'T#'!
 !"
,II!I2!262I2=2<614@!12<!44=
JHE01243H';+
7*/!1=03<.<=!
JHE0121237>/')
/,'7?
/!B##'
,II!I2!I129=6124<6<66<@
JHJCK% E012<3?,
$#!- 
013=49.=4
01263&#,#)
FC%'!  
2601394=.9
'.E#?EB'.HKC 
01263F,+
!@01344.6!
012<3?'!@01319<.1@4
E01263#,
''!!9=0@3
4<.6<!
'? J01263#H,D
$#D! 
 26013==<.92!
H0123+#$#!
.E12!.4!
B0<=35+,C!
H012<3C'',C
.*#!=03.=
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'#!*!
601396.@!
?BHF#01263%##
$#!  
26013=2.=4!
0123E#'VP
';#
1043@==.@=6
012<3(,!!
9=0@3<=.<9
012<3((,('))
D'!!
,II!I2!I2=2<=1@<6==91
K?0123')',
)E#''C!19013
19.16!
K?012<3%#))#
'!B5(,2!I!1@46
KF012<3- (
F, #!KK012123')#,
)''..'!- , 
/https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12373
K#C)JKE012<3-0 
 !C,!
K012123)'#
#)##,#''5H!
101316.=22!
J0122<3',
$#''!12=2043
@<.42!
) ?   F 012223 ' #  , %# 
>      ?          E#'!
  <2013=<1.92=!
FO01293#,
!940312<.116!
F#)??)EKH012123%'')
$#,'! 
-,II!I2!24I$!$!12<!2142
EHKEE? ?FO012<3 D
,    '#'    O  F      /
  , J' #  )!
"(=0@3@.<9!
E0123 5  ) !
1063<9.<4=!
E>H0301223/3
 %,CF!
E)#01223%!
9013@6.!
EJ#KF> 5)#?E01263J',
#;!5)#?EJ#KF> 
E!2
!F, #!6<.<@
EH012<3#,.#
?D!120136.<!
EHHB0123H',')D
7#'/!
1903<@9.<=!
E#D?C?E*CFK'K>. )EC# 
>  '%H#>012@3J
,'#
)#!","4
12@90931=@G1@<!
HK'.E#?C012<3
,'
HC?#!
,II!I2!262I949<=4@!12<!4@1<1<
?012<3 .,''
'.'!@0=3<1.<96!
+012123(#,CCP
- , /
https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12377
501263(((,+'#P
!91043<=.<96!
5012<3H#,
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, 60@3@2.44!
501263,!"(
*=40934=.44!
 01293','
)'!!=6093@=.@@2!
 C012<3
!", 
60@322.
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  DL012123%#',
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23  F, #!
16.1<@
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!1<0=319=.1@6
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110<314<.164!
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#H5
B5(,2!262I2<44=4<U!12<!416@9
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'##! 
 26013=@4.=4<!
)DD 012@36/3 7
/3!H,(
!
'EC'K01263BD#),
##! 
 26013@@6.@46
'B012223E#',
#!!1903.6!
'B01222)3$#!"(=1
9<.41
'K0<6<3- 8'9'!H'),
!
$012233!E,E
!
01263 D'#!!
)!", 
0936=<.<<!
01263J)#+#
)!#'
01263J':#),
$#! 
 26013=<2.=<6!
#H012123(#?#+#+#
+!B?KF5KE
03'!23 
F, #!.14!
%'01293,)#'!"
26.<9!
%?#012<3H,
#.)'.
''#!" 
604369.124!
%'012434!F,!
>%012<3.),#
/+#!- 
, /99093<9.62!
>E01223$#!'K 
E?KK03-!23 
!F,!9<.9=9!
>E01263?',*
)E+! 
 26013=1.==4
:#(E0<<23 :!K,
!
:#(E012263##$#8!H
C#%B032
3 (!,C!.29
... Although ethnicity does not play a significant role in the life of the local community, some minor ethnic tensions (between the Roma and Hungarians) contribute to a conscious segregation process, influencing the space-time trajectories of residents and shaping the local pattern of microsegregation. This brings us to the topic of social justice-a key principle underpinning much work in contemporary social geography [61,62]. Our study on the lived experiences of social inequalities and microsegregation demonstrates how tensions between social justice and everyday city life can arise and provides an opportunity to consider what policies might be put in place to make social justice a reality. ...
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The concept of microsegregation has gained increasing popularity among researchers dealing with socio-spatial disparities in cities. This is because urban space has become increasingly multifaceted over recent decades, and the boundaries of socio-spatial segregation have also become increasingly subtle, often taking invisible forms below the neighborhood level. This study contributes to the literature on microsegregation by exploring small-scale forms of social disparities in one of the neighborhoods of Szeged, a second-tier city in Hungary. We used both quantitative and qualitative research methods to capture visible and invisible forms of microsegregation in the study area. An analysis of census data confirmed the coupling of socio-economic diversity and polarization at the census-tract level in three different forms as a result of various underlying factors, among which the sorting effect of the housing market plays a leading role. The results of in-depth interviews with experts and residents suggest that although the overall perception of the neighborhood is good and that serious conflicts do not occur, there are palpable socio-spatial differences and signs of segregation at the micro scale. The weak sense of segregation can be partly linked to the lack of public spaces where daily encounters between people from different social groups could take place.
... Building on these conceptual and theoretical foundations, Part III advances discussions on how we can and should approach digital geographies reflecting on the experiences, needs, and knowledges that will advance our understandings of the digital in relation to justice, power, and margins. Questions around the decolonial (Jazeel, 2017), social justice (Hopkins, 2020), and the more-than-human (Whatmore, 2006) have been the source of passionate debate across human geography and the digital has a crucial role to play here. Partly because the tech sector has traditionally been dominated by the thinking of straight white men from the global North, there are significant problems with the role of the digital in reconfiguring the operation of contemporary society. ...
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Framing the edited volume A Research Agenda for Digital Geographies, this chapter explores the state of play for digital geographies and suggests future research agendas digital geographers can move into. This collection pushes the ongoing ideas in digital geographies further by grounding abstract ideas into case studies of how the digital manifests, shapes and is reshaped by the world around us. The chapter explores the four key topics of the book: digital margins, digital spacemaking, digital methodologies, and digital infrastructures and technologies. The contributions made by emerging and established digital geographers whose work collectively advances theoretical, methodological, and ethical realms in understanding the digital. The volume is another step in the evolution and progression of digital geographies, which will continue to be critically engaged with the role played the digital plays in our societies.
... Dentro de ese conjunto, las reflexiones centradas en el carácter de (in)justicia del proceso de urbanización son recurrentes (Lévy et al, 2018). Más concretamente, en lo que se refiere al ámbito puramente geográfico, autores como Hopkins analizan el compromiso de la subdisciplina de la Geografía social con la consecución de justicia social (Hopkins, 2021). ...
... Radical forms of mutual aid build on this tradition, and "is necessary to help fundamentally transform the conditions that created the crisis in the first place" and in relation to COVID-19, this means accepting that "the emergency was here long before the virus arrived" (Gulick et al., 2020, n.p.). The result is therefore that mutual aid praxis can link with a multitude of geographical research trajectories that are focused around intersectional social justice issues (for a comprehensive contemporary overview of these, see Hopkins, 2021). ...
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Over 277,000 African Americans migrated to Chicago between 1900 and 1940, an influx unsurpassed in any other northern city. From the start, carceral powers literally and figuratively created a prison-like environment to contain these African Americans within the so-called Black Belt on the city's South Side. A geographic study of race and gender, this book casts light upon the ubiquitous—and ordinary—ways carceral power functions in places where African Americans live. Moving from the kitchenette to the prison cell, and mining forgotten facts from sources as diverse as maps and memoirs, the book explores the myriad architectures of confinement, policing, surveillance, urban planning, and incarceration. In particular, it investigates how the ongoing carceral effort oriented and imbued black male bodies and gender performance from the Progressive era to the present. The result is an essential interdisciplinary study that highlights the racialization of space, the role of containment in subordinating African Americans, the politics of mobility under conditions of alleged freedom, and the ways black men cope with—and resist—spacial containment. A timely response to the massive upswing in carceral forms within society, the book examines how these mechanisms came to exist, why society aimed them against African Americans, and the consequences for black communities and black masculinity both historically and today.
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This paper introduces the collection of six African‐Caribbean academics, making the claim for the forum as an intervention that pushes towards the firmer establishment of a Black British Geography. This intervention forum arises out of a public event called “Urban roots of creative Black culture: gender, music, and the body,” which took place at the Midlands Arts Centre in Birmingham, UK, in 2019, and was co‐sponsored by this journal, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers (TIBG). After an introductory piece, the forum brings together four short papers by contributors to the event, each exploring Black creative culture, gender, music, and embodiment in relation to the city, archives, dance, and creative practice (respectively). Bringing together six African‐Caribbean academics, the forum is an intervention that presents aspects of an emergent Black British Geography and, as such, challenges Geography as a discipline to be sufficiently open to accommodate it.
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This collection of essays extends cross‐disciplinary conversations between co‐authors that began as part of a podcast series by the Relational Poverty Network, “New Poverty Politics for Changing Times”. The authors engage impoverishment as a relation, as an outcome of intersecting political projects of racialised oppression, political‐economic injustice and socio‐legal control. Across various sites, the collection’s essays trace poverty politics, providing conjunctural and multi‐scalar analyses that illuminate the operations of power in producing impoverishment. They direct our attention beyond topics typically associated with poverty studies, showing how processes such as bordering, migrant illegality, racial capitalism and caring community politics intersect in poverty politics today. Our introductory essay argues for a relational poverty analysis that addresses the entanglements of cultural politics, those that produce classificatory schemes, together with political‐economic processes that produce various forms of poverty politics in the current conjuncture. We chart thinkable and unthinkable poverty politics across the collection’s essays in order to analyse current hegemonic formations of poverty governance as well as alternative imaginations and actions that are resisting and reworking relations of impoverishment. Ultimately, this collection expands vocabularies and analytical repertoires for understanding the ongoing ways in which impoverishment is produced and resisted, positing relationality as key to re‐politicising poverty towards a more just future.
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This essay argues that the study of urban poverty is too often characterised by the disappearance of specific people and bodily politics from our analytic frames, rendering modes of life and politics illegible to scholars. We call for attention to the embodied politics of knowledge production, as neighbourhoods surrounding universities are exploited first as laboratories for poverty scholarship—exemplified in the relationship between the Chicago School’s theory of human ecology and the racialised real estate markets—and then as devalued spaces for creative industries. Following work at the intersection of urban studies and American studies, we call for a relational reading of the archives of dominant poverty scholarship, and for scholarship attentive to the body—as a knowledge project only ever partially recorded in fieldnotes or the archives—as a key site for politics.
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In this article, we respond to Oswin’s ‘An other geography’ from a feminist postcolonial geographic perspective. We make three interventions. First, we decenter Euro-American Anglo geography spatially, insisting that we situate it in place, and are attentive to spatial, temporal, relational, and overlapping margins and centers. Second, we call for a more embodied account, recognizing the intimate is a lens onto and a site for the reproduction of spatial oppression and resistance. Last, we call for a reckoning with whiteness, a more sustained interrogation of its work both in spaces of domination and at the margins. A feminist postcolonial geographic assertion gives us perspective. It makes visible the situated and varied experiences of elided scholar-subjects in the Global South, and those otherwise marginal to the hegemonies of both Euro-American Anglo geography and its critics. And, in doing so, it forges new contours of connection, offering us more inclusive, complex, and disruptive opportunities for solidarity.